In the Boston Globe, there's this long-ish piece, "The Downside of Diversity: A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?" (A strange title, no? What work is "liberal" doing?) The piece is about Robert Putnam's ("Bowling Alone") new study finding that "the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings."
I'd welcome any reactions from political or social scientists to either the piece or the study. I came away from the article wondering if Putnam's study provides some support for my intuition that non-"diverse" institutions (e.g., some religious universities) are important in pluralist societies precisely because of their non-"diversity".
Robby George has posted "Danger and Opportunity: A Plea to Catholics" over at the First Things blog. (Click here to read what some of the commenters at the Commonweal blog are saying about Robby's post.) Here are the opening paragraphs:
We live in a time of both danger and opportunity for the Catholic Church in the United States. The danger is that large numbers of Catholics will, as a result of clergy sex scandals and the large, highly publicized cash awards and settlements following in their train, lose confidence in the reliability of the Church as a teacher of truth, particularly in the moral domain.
Given the powerful dynamics of secularization already unleashed in American culture—dynamics whose impact was discernible even before clergy sex abuse became front-page news—the further demoralization of the Catholic faithful could all too easily result in widespread abandonment of belief in those teachings most severely under challenge from secularist ideologies dominant in universities (including Catholic universities), the print and broadcast media, and the elite sector of American culture generally. In particular, it would erode confidence in the principles of marriage and sexual morality and the sanctity of human life that are integral to the Christian understanding of human nature, dignity, and destiny.
Moreover, the loss of faith that characteristically begins with the abandonment of moral teachings cannot be restricted to such teachings. It tends to undermine belief in those doctrines of faith that require for their meaningful affirmation a sound (if ordinarily informal and implicit) understanding of the meaning and significance of the human person as embodied; these include, above all, the doctrines of the incarnation, the resurrection of the body, Christ’s own bodily resurrection and ascension into heaven, the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
A little later, there are some (I think) powerful words about transformation, conversion, and Christianity:
. . . What is in need of transformation is not the teaching of the Church but the human mind and heart to which these teachings are addressed. Christianity is a religion of transformation. No one is literally born into it; even infants at baptism are converted to it. There is not a Catholic on the planet or in the history of the Church who is not a convert.
Conversion is effected, by God’s grace, by transformative acts of the intellect and will. And the process of conversion is lifelong, whether one begins it a few days or weeks after birth or on one’s eighty-fifth birthday. Christ is constantly calling us to conversion and making available to us the divine graces that are its fundamental resources. We falter and fail; he lifts us up and puts us back on track. We grow in him, so long as we are faithful in responding to his acts of love for us by our acts of love of God and neighbor.
The Church doesn’t need fundamental transformation; it needs to be about the business of transforming us. This is a task for the whole Church: bishops, priests, and other religious, and the laity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, this work of transformation of minds and hearts necessarily includes work of cultural transformation. For better or worse, culture is character-shaping and, thus, person-forming. That’s why the task of cultural renewal and reform is part of the Christian task—an essential part. It may not be rejected or neglected by the Church or her leadership in the name of evangelization of individuals; indeed, it is crucial to the project of evangelizing individuals. The task of evangelization is immeasurably more difficult where culture works powerfully against the witness of the Church by fostering, facilitating, and encouraging sin and undermining the efforts of religious communities and families to encourage in their members, especially young people, respect for themselves and others and fidelity to the law of God and moral truth.
I take it that inextricably linked with, and part of, the "culture" that, as Robby observes, is "character-shaping and, thus, person-forming" are law and the legal profession. Lawyering and law are, it seems, both things in-need-of-transformation and vehicles-for-cultural-transformation. Are they more one than the other?
Here is Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece on "the C.I.A.'s secret interrogation program." And, here is Marty Lederman's discussion of the piece, the program, and the associate abuses.
The other day, I mentioned a wonderful book that I finished recently, Paul Elie's "The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage." Flipping back through it, I came across a few notes and tid-bits that might be of interest to MOJ readers:
Discussing Flannery O'Connor's reading of Maritain, and her thinking about "Christian art", Elie writes: "[Maritain] declares that there is no Christian art per se. Subject matter -- biblical themes, candles and incense, nuns and priests -- does not Christianize a work of art. . . . Christian art is simply art made by a Christian believer." Could we substitute "university" or "law school" for "art"? I don't think so, actually, but I wonder what Maritain would say.
Here's O'Connor, responding to someone who asked if she found doctrines like the incarnation "emotionally satisfying": "I must say that the thought of everyone lollying about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. . . . There are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive."
O'Connor, writing a forward to Wise Blood: "That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence."
O'Connor, responding to a correspondent "in religious anguish": "If what the Church teaches is not true, then the security and sense of purpose it gives you are of no value and you are right to reject it."
Prof. Robert Miller and Ryan Anderson are discussing the question, and the meaning of religious liberty, in the context of Amnesty International's abortion-related positions, here and here. Check it out. Any thoughts?
MOJ-reader Jonathan Watson shared with me some interesting thoughts about natural law, on the one hand, and simplicity and knowability in the positive law, on the other:
One of the important, and it seems to me, underdiscussed, aspects of classical jurisprudence is the idea that before a law may bind, it must first be promulgated. That is, those who are to be bound by the law must be aware of it. It thus is reasonable to assert that there are certain aspects of a law which would assist promulgation. Among these, at the very least, comprehensibility among the group to be bound seems to be important. What I mean by this is, there are some laws that by their nature apply to all people, equally, while others apply only when engaged in particular activities. For instance, there are laws generally against murder, theft, and so forth (criminal laws), others regarding business associations, of which the average person may have some knowledge, but is usually not bound by them for not being engaged in any arena where such a law would have jurisdiction. So, perhaps we could call these laws of general jurisdiction versus specific jurisdiction; this is not to deny that there are other aspects of law which also exist, but I focus on this one aspect.
Natural law should be an important consideration in the drafting of laws of general jurisdiction. Aquinas discusses the importance of the agreement, the obediance, of the written, or positive law, to the natural law. One result of this obediance, especially in regards to the promulgation aspect of law, is that the individual person knows and can obey the law with little interpretation, and thereby, with less chance that the law will be or can be applied unjustly. Problems arise when laws are so such in nature that even those who fall under their application more or less naturally are unable to comprehend them, or entirely unaware of them, and are therefore penalized. Even if the penalty in itself seems not unjust, it is in applying the law to someone who is unaware that the law binds that injustice results.
I think there is something to the idea that the great lawgivers in history have been known as those who synthesized the law and stated it clearly for all to see. The worst tyrants are not those who apply the law with great rigor, or impose heavy-handed measures, but those who have made law arbitrary - made it unstable, complex, unknown. This is where law seems so far from natural action - we give our children certain rules to follow - it is when the rules are broken that children received discipline. Is not making rules so complex that they are incomprehensible to children the same, in the end, as no rules and arbitrary punishment?
My friend Eugene Volokh has a post up, over at his blog, about a recent decision, Dexter v. Dexter, in which (quoting Eugene) a "mother's open paganism [is] treated as [a] reason to deny her custody." Prof. Volokh writes:
[T]he reference to mother's paganism — and the view that pagans may be denied custody because their open practices risk "exposing such lifestyle to [their] child[ren]" — strikes me as a clear First Amendment violation.
It seems to me that her bisexuality should likewise be none of the court's business; nor should her sado-masochism, unless there's some specific evidence that the practices are physically harmful to her and thus indirectly to the child (evidence that judgment, the magistrate's findings, and the appeals court decision never even hinted at).
I wrote a short article, several years ago, about parents' religious beliefs and child-custody matters, basically agreeing with Eugene's approach (i.e., an approach under which the content of parents' religious beliefs should not be regarded as a "harm" to children). But, I wonder if I was wrong? Putting aside the caselaw, surely it is the case that some parents' religious beliefs and practices are harmful to children? Or, can we not say this anymore?
Taking up Lisa's invitation to share some reading suggestions for (what is left of) the summer . . . here are a few books that I just finished and really liked:
Regular MOJ readers know that I am of the view that the freedom of the Church in China is among the most salient and important religious-freedom matters today. That said, here is an interesting interview with Cardinal Zen, conducted by Rafaela Schmid, posted over at the First Things blog. Among other things, Cardinal Zen discusses the Pope's recent letter to China's Catholics, and the future of the so-called Patriotic Association.
Thanks to all my MOJ-colleagues for all the great posts to which I returned today after a week in the Pacific Northwest. Unlike Greg, I have not been in Rome. Instead, on Sunday morning, I was here (on top):
